Can We Talk About ‘Lynne Koplitz: Hormonal Beast’ On Netflix?

From the opening minutes, there’s something about Lynne Koplitz’s voice and look that evokes the late, great Joan Rivers.

Whether that’s coincidental or not, it makes perfect sense. For Rivers not only inspired Koplitz and is credited in tribute at the end of Lynne Koplitz: Hormonal Beast on Netflix, but also because the two became great friends on the set of IFC’s Z Rock and were almost joined at the hip at times on Joan and Melissa: Joan Knows Best. Joan had become Koplitz’s comedy godmother. Part fascination, part frustration, the voice of Koplitz comes through loud and clear from the start of her first solo stand-up comedy special, catching her as she attempts to explain Netflix to her mother via voice mail.

Cut to her special, set as if it were still the swinging ’60s, giant fans blowing (or not) behind Koplitz, who’s wearing a sparkling dress and sporting an updo.

“I am so comfortable like this,” Koplitz tells us. “I feel like Barbie, years later, after she sold the dream house and she’s living in her loft. She found out that Ken is gay and she’s alright. Now she likes to be called Barbara. She let herself go a little bit.”

When Koplitz first tasted comedy fame around the turn of the century, hosting a dating show called Change of Heart, co-hosting a talk show called Life & Style, and providing comedic commentary on the Food Network’s How to Boil Water, she seemed as if Cindy Crawford had suddenly gotten funny and adopted a Southern twang. By the time she’d joined Jenny McCarthy’s Dirty Sexy Funny tour (as well as an EPIX comedy special), Koplitz was jokingly describing herself as a “zoogar,” a funnier lazier version of a cougar waiting for younger men to hit on her.

You could see and hear how Koplitz was beyond the dating game in her brief stand-up performance captured in Chris Rock’s 2014 film, Top Five.

So by the time she recorded her Hormonal Beast, at 49, Koplitz wouldn’t take any guff from her boyfriend. Not if he claimed she hadn’t told him the correct date for her Netflix taping. Certainly not if he dared call her crazy. She’s not crazy, she jokes. Just hormonal. Koplitz notes that men would become just as unpredictable if they learned at 13 that any given month, “people could live inside of us.” At the other end, pushing 50 and menopause, Koplitz also now understands why her family thought her mother had gone “crazy” during a “cold cut incident” in 1985.

Besides, why would anyone think calling a loved one crazy is a good idea, anytime? “What do you think’s going to happen? Do you think you’re doing something good?” Koplitz says.

Rather, she concedes that the unpredictability of women might better be compared to tornadoes. And she makes light of her decision to not introduce more storm systems into her home or lifestyle.

“I’m not a mom,” she says. “I have nice things instead of children.”

As for men, though, Koplitz has definite opinions and has devoted much of this hour to sharing them with you. “Aunty Lynne has studied men, and I have good information,” she says. “Write this down.”

Cracking the code is simple, she says. Do three things and you’ll always get along with men. I wrote them down, but decided it’s better if you hear her out first, and then you write them down yourself. They are pretty sure-fire methods, though!

Koplitz has also takes a moment in between doling out advice to her fellow women to address the fellows in the audience on the other side of the screen.

She’s now the comedy godmother. Which means you should listen up if you want your wishes to come true, too.